English

computer science, engineering, and design / English CSED850 aDvanCED InquIry: ComputEr SCIEnCE, EngInEErIng, anD DESIgn

This course is the culminating experience in the Computer Science, Engineering, and Design Program. Students in this course will meet as a group to share literature and discuss experiments and projects. Each student will propose, design, and iterate on an independent project that demonstrates an understanding of interdisciplinary learning. Students in this course are expected to identify a problem or question, connect with a client, design and execute a meaningful project, and report on their process to the GFA community. Open to 12th-graders; prerequisites: two half-credit courses in Computer Science, Engineering, and Design or departmental permission. (1 credit; full year)

DIploma wIth a ConCEntratIon In StEam

Available to students in the class of 2022. For students who are passionate about the interdisciplinary study of science, technology, engineering, the arts, and math, GFA offers a Diploma with a Concentration in STEAM. To facilitate scheduling, it is recommended that students who are interested in pursuing a Diploma with a Concentration in STEAM declare their interest by the spring of their 10th-grade year. The diploma can be earned by completing the following: • 4 credits of science • 4 credits of mathematics • An AP Science course • 1 credit of Computer Science, Engineering or Design • Advanced Inquiry: Computer Science, Engineering, and Design

ENGLISH

Eng250 EnglISh 9: many FormS, many voICES

Focusing on great literature in a variety of genres — including classic and contemporary fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and drama — students will learn to listen more carefully, empathetically, and insightfully to the voices of others and to develop their own powerful and inimitable voices. In partnership with the teacher, they will create a learning community that supports a diversity of thought, perspective, experience, and background; that recognizes such diversity as a source of strength; and that honors different voices and identities. In class, they will develop the habits of passionate and precise reading, discussing, and writing, with a special emphasis on the twin arts of close reading and Harkness discussion. Guided by the understanding that (as Saul Bellow noted) “a writer is a reader moved to emulation,” students will write creative pieces inspired by the literature they read; in their critical writing, they will often seek to understand, explain, and celebrate a text that they love. There will be opportunities for them to read and write about what matters most to them. Throughout, the course will focus on the process of reading and writing, and the primary mode of assessment — a portfolio of work chosen and curated by the student — will value not only the quality of the work but also the art of revision and the habit of self-reflection. (1 credit; full year)

Eng450 EnglISh 10: worlD lItEraturE

This course takes students on a journey around the world through literary cultures and genres. Texts may include Satrapi’s The Complete Persepolis, Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies, Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front, Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, and poetry, memoir, and short fiction from around the globe. Writing assignments will include both literary analysis and personal and creative pieces, with a special emphasis on the craft of revision, and each student will be responsible for daily contributions to class discussion. Although study of grammar continues, the grammar topics shift to usage and application of rules learned in earlier courses. Themes explored in the course will include the importance of culture, tradition, identity, memory, and narrative voice with an emphasis on expanding students’ world views and improving their critical and creative skills. (1 credit; full year)

Eng650 EnglISh 11: amErICan lItEraturE

Inspired by Emerson’s call for young Americans to develop intellectual self-reliance, English 11 will invite students to take increased responsibility for their learning and for charting their own paths of inquiry through the texts we read, both around the Harkness table and in their written work. Texts may include novels, short stories, essays, and poetry from the 19th century to the present. As we read, we will ask ourselves how these works grapple with their moral, psychological, religious, and political preoccupations, and we will pay special attention to the forms of expression writers use to craft meaning. Students will practice writing the personal essay, the analytical essay, and the personal analytical essay; each time learning the shape and moves of the genre by reading masters of the form and then writing essays of their own inspired and informed by these masters. Students will also write poems and shorter reflective pieces along the way. Each semester, students will submit a portfolio of critical, reflective, and creative writing as their culminating assessment. Students in this course may elect to sit for the AP Language and Composition exam in the spring. (1 credit; full year)

SEMESTER ELECTIVES 12th-graders will elect two semester-long courses. Below are the courses offered in 2020–21; offerings for 2021–22 may include different courses and will be shared in the spring prior to sign-up.

Eng750I thE “I” IS thE EyE — an IntroDuCtIon to DoCumEntary StuDIES

Drawing from research-based films, non-fiction narratives,and radio programs, this course will examine the modes we use to document and reveal the world around us. We will examine portrayals of real people, events, and situations — not just as real and authentic chronicles but also as creative statements of artistry and personal vision. In the spirit of the following David Foster Wallace quote, we will examine how documentaries “serve as models and guides for how large or complex sets of facts can be sifted, culled, and arranged in meaningful ways—ways that yield and illuminate truth instead of just adding more noise to the overall roar.” In addition to the compelling stories themselves, we will explore what Joan Didion called “the implacable ‘I,’”— the artist’s lens through which we see these narratives unfold and how this lens impacts the audience. To prepare for a culminating creative project, we will examine, analyze and discuss many great models. Texts may include Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, James Agee’s Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff, Serial Production’s Serial and S-Town, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi’s and

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Jimmy Chin’s Free Solo, Charles Ferguson’s Inside Job, and Steve James’s Hoop Dreams. (.5 credit; 1st semester)

Eng750B “ChangIng thE lIght For uS”: BalDwIn/morrISIon

This course will dive into the works of and connections between James Baldwin and Toni Morrison, two of the most compelling American writers of the 20th century. Their lives spanned Jim Crow to the internet, Harlem to rural France, Ohio to Oslo, obscurity to the bright lights of international fame. Baldwin and Morrison navigated contact and conflict across the lines of race, region, sexual orientation, and gender in ways that will challenge us to read, think, and be better. Our work will bring us face-toface with the variety of differences between us. This will engender conversations that will often be uncomfortable, but that will, if we engage honestly and openly, bring us closer to one another and to ourselves. Our goal will be to join in the sentiment of Morrison’s memorable eulogy of Baldwin, which articulated the charge she took from Baldwin and his writing: “that I work and think at the top of my form, that I stand on moral ground but know that ground must be shored up by mercy, that ‘the world is before me and I need not take it or leave it as it was when I came in.’ ” In wrestling with Baldwin and Morrison’s incomparable genius and generosity, we will hopefully come away with a deeper sense of our shared responsibilities and opportunities as 21st century Americans. (.5 credit, 1st Semester)

english Eng750C CrEatIvE wrItIng workShop: Short Story CraFt

Creativity happens as a result of study and practice. By reading well, writing daily, and paying attention, we tap into our creative selves. In this college-level writing workshop, we nurture creativity while we study the form of the short story and practice the craft of writing stories of our own, all in the context of a supportive, creative community. Where does the inspiration come from? It comes from the stories we read and from the lives we live, and so we need to pay close attention to both. Authors we study could include but will not be limited to: Lydia Davis, Gina Berriault, Grace Paley, Nafissa Thompson-Spires, Stuart Dybek, Lorrie Moore, Jamaica Kincaid, Margaret Atwood, TC Boyle, Joyce Carol Oates, James Baldwin, and Ernest Hemingway. (.5 credit; 1st Semester)

Eng750D naturE wrItIng anD EnvIronmEntal lItEraturE

Informed and inspired by great nature writing, students will get outdoors, pay attention to the local landscape, write and revise pieces about the natural world, and discuss and investigate sustainability issues. One set of texts will be poems, stories, and essays by writers like Basho, Thoreau, Leopold, Dillard, and Oliver; the other will be the salt marsh, the Audubon woodland, and Long Island Sound. Our main goal will be to experience, describe, understand, and care for this place — to cultivate the affection (to use Wendell Berry’s formulation) that constitutes “such love for a place and its life that [one wants] to preserve it and remain in it.” Students will read and write critically, but their primary output will be creative: poems, stories, personal essays, and photographs. They’ll also keep a journal, establish a regular sit-spot outdoors, and produce a final portfolio that showcases their best writing, revising, and reflecting. Students should expect to be outside in all weather. (.5 credit; 1st Semester)

Eng750E polItICS, proSE anD poEtry

This course focuses on texts that illustrate the vitality of the human spirit amidst societal, social, and political obstacles. Works studied will shed light on individuals and groups whose voices have been excluded from traditional literary canons and political spaces. Students will respond to the texts in informal journal writing as well as analytical essays and other assessments. All of the works emphasize the importance of learning from history in order to write new stories, whether in the United States or beyond. Readings for the class may include Rankine’s Citizen, Shakespeare’s Othello, Gay’s Bad Feminist, Coates’s Between the World and Me, Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time, Wright’s 12 Million Black Voices, and Beyoncé’s Lemonade. (.5 credit; 1st Semester)

Eng750F Can tv BE art? thE CaSE oF hBo’S The Wire

By the time the final season of The Wire was released in 2008, it was widely hailed as one of the best television shows ever made. This claim is still made today, despite how many excellent shows there have been in the meantime. In this course, we will enjoy and analyze this ambitious and finely crafted show. We will regularly pair our viewing of the show with readings that will help us better understand what The Wire achieved, both in terms of content and of form. Some questions we will ask are: how does the show use the medium, genres, and grammar of television to explore questions of race, power, money, work, policing, education, gender, sexuality, and other essential problems of 21st century American society? To what extent is the medium of television particularly suited for this exploration? What does it mean to experience a television show as a work of art? What might it mean to read a television show as closely as we would a novel or poem? And what might this show reveal to us about the kind of society that we, as 21st century Americans, have inherited? What might it teach

us about how our history is shaping our present and our possible futures? (.5 credit; 1st Semester)

Eng750g CrEatIvE wrItIng workShop: poEtry wrItIng

Students will write original poetry, in a variety of forms and styles, seeking always to develop their distinctive voices and visions. They’ll also read lots of great poetry, both contemporary and classic, informed by the questions “How does it work?” and “How can I do that, too?” The class will be conducted as a workshop — we’ll read and respond to each other’s work regularly — and students should be prepared to offer kind, honest criticism; to accept such criticism with good grace; and to revise fearlessly and diligently. (.5 credit; 2nd Semester)

Eng750h thE FEmalE pErSuaSIon

This course will focus on relationships between female characters in a variety of texts in order to analyze how these relationships can inform our cultural moment. Students will discuss what messages certain texts are perpetuating, complicating, and dismissing with regard to definitions of womanhood, female friendships, and female relationships in general. Additionally, we will study the critical response to the featured texts in order to better inform our contextual understanding. Students will respond to the texts in informal journal writing as well as analytical essays and other assessments. The class culminates in a creative project that will be largely informed by class discussions and themes within the texts. Possible texts: Roxane Gay, Bad Feminist; Anne Tyler, Vinegar Girl; William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew; Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping: A Novel; excerpts from Jane the Virgin (The CW); Insecure (HBO); The Bachelor (ABC). (.5 credit; 2nd Semester)

Eng750J aFrICan amErICan lItEraturE

This course will study an array of African American literary voices and texts from a variety of genres -- poetry and song lyrics, prose fiction and essays, drama and film -- and work to understand and appreciate these works in their social and historical contexts. The first half of the semester will focus on writers from the late 19th and 20th centuries, including W.E.B. DuBois, Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, Richard Wright, Margaret Walker, James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, Alice Walker, and Lorraine Hansberry. The second half of the semester will focus on 21st-century voices, and how they are both in dialogue with their literary predecessors and opening new conversations about the past, present, and future. Topics we will encounter in these texts include individual identity, self-expression, and fulfillment; cultural, family, and community identity; historical contexts and pressures; constructions of race and gender; and social justice. Class time will be spent in student-centered, small and large group discussion with an emphasis on close reading and interpretive analysis. Students will also respond to the texts in informal journal writing, analytical essays, and creative and personal reflection pieces. (.5 credit; 2nd Semester)

Eng750k thE goat: tolStoy’S AnnA KAreninA

As Michael Jordan is to basketball and Bob Dylan is to rock and roll, so is Leo Tolstoy to the art form we call the novel: reading him feels like seeing a master bring the thing he is doing to its fullest and most perfect expression. In this course we will devote ourselves to enjoying, discussing, thinking about and writing about Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, a novel of such scope, sociological perceptiveness, and psychological acuity that reading it feels like you are getting close to human life itself. In exploring the novel’s big picture and its details we will immerse ourselves in Tolstoy’s mind and world. We may come out of the experience richer, smarter, perhaps even better people. (.5 credit; 2nd Semester)

Eng750l “rISkIng DElIght”: ContEmporary poEtry laB

This course is a deep dive into the poetry that is being written right now; we will read, discuss, and write about poems from current publications, and we will write, discuss, and write about our own and each other’s poems. The premise is quite simple, but the results will depend on a thousand different variables: your nose for sniffing out poems that delight, our collective work developing and articulating our own aesthetics, the unfolding creative processes of poets working right now around the world, and the experiences we have and then render in fresh, surprising language. (.5 credit; 2nd Semester)

Eng750m thE wIlD ChIlD: thE EvolvIng DEpICtIon oF ChIlDhooD In lItEraturE

Drawing from a selection of novels from the 19th century to the present, this course will explore the ways in which the depiction of the child in literature has evolved in step with, and at times ahead of, the contemporaneous notions of child psychology. We will also look at the various depictions of parenting in these novels and simultaneously explore popular contemporaneous children’s books for context. Texts could include but would not be limited to: Alice in Wonderland, What Maisie Knew, On the Banks of Plum Creek, The Member of the Wedding,